Samsung Develops 10nm SRAM, Beats Intel and TSMC

There are many people who hate on Samsung’s hardware, but any Samsung fan will be quick to point out something that no hater can deny; Samsung manufactures mobile SOCs that are at or near the top of the industry with each iteration. Samsung’s in-house Exynos processors have always been a powerful, if a little off the beaten path, alternative to Qualcomm’s offerings. With the launch of the Galaxy S6 and its ilk, the world at large took notice of the Exynos’ capabilities. Now, Samsung is at it again.

They’ve managed to develop a 10 nanometer SRAM chip, breaking out of the 14 nanometer age at last and leaving rivals Intel and TSMC in the dust. This new SRAM boasts a 128MB transfer rate, making it the fastest mobile RAM out there. SRAM, often paired with the processor and its cache, is what facilitates data transfer within the cache and between the processor and RAM. Using large-scale cache memory, Samsung has pared down their new RAM’s size by about 37 percent, allowing it to be placed in more discreet locations and giving OEMs that use the SRAM more freedom in regards to design, as well as much faster cache transfer speeds for their processors. This will, in turn, pave the way for 10 nanometer processor technology, which will be even smaller, faster and less power-hungry than current 14 nanometer configurations such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 or Samsung’s Exynos 7420.

Samsung is still testing the newly developed tech, planning to give it a commercial launch near the end of 2016 or in early 2017. The most likely scenario is that they will announce the new development at January’s International Solid-State Circuits Conference in 2017, making it official. From there, the process and the SRAM chip itself, as well as processors made from it, will be licensed and churned out by Samsung, likely seeing inclusion in new smartphones and tablets before the end of that year.

Rivals Intel and TSMC will most likely not take this lying down and push to develop their own 10 nanometer SRAM and processors based on it before Samsung makes their big unveiling. You heard it here, folks, the brand new generation of 14 nanometer chips have already taken their first step toward being outclassed by 2017.